This Plane Has A Weight Limit Pilot May Have To Pedal Raven For Five Hours

The pilot of this special plane must be fit, really fit.

He or she must weigh no more than about 140 pounds and must be prepared to pedal rigorously for five hours.

It will be an exhausting flight. When the plane finally lands, the pilot will have shed some six pounds.

The human-powered plane is called the Raven and it’s about to mount an assault on a 10-year-old world record for a pedal-powered flight over water.

“Now it’s no longer theoretical,” Paul Illian, a Boeing engineer who has been working on the design of the plane for the past four years, told The Seattle Times. “Now it’s a real airplane.”

On Saturday, the plane’s designers tested its durability and ironed out some of its kinks. Illian gathered with volunteers for a few hours in an empty hangar at the former Sand Point Naval Air Station.

Illian pushed the aircraft forward at a running gait while volunteers guided each 57-foot wing. In several tests, its landing wheel lifted a few feet off the ground.

On hand for the tests were a handful of pilot candidates who are among several selected to fly the Raven.

Illian’s plane will challenge the current record of 71.52 miles in a flight of 3 hours and 54 minutes by a plane developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Raven has a wingspan of a Boeing 737, goes no faster than a 10-speed bicycle and will weigh only 245 pounds at takeoff, counting the pilot. It is so light that its flight, in early April, will have to be on a day when there is no wind.

The featherweight wings, for instance, consist of short lengths of wood doweling laid up with composite materials and covered with foam insulation and graphite material that is 0.1-inch thick.

The plane will take off from Point Roberts, near the British Columbia border, for a flight over the Strait of Georgia, Rosario Strait and Puget Sound to the Seattle waterfront.

The estimated five-hour flight will cover 100 miles.

When the Raven finally takes off, six pilots will be on standby.

“This was the first time that I was actually able to see the size of the wings,” said Shan Rayray, 32, a pilot candidate who sprints and races bikes. “I was very impressed. It would be great to have the opportunity to fly it.”

The pilot’s efforts will generate 0.4 horsepower, and propel the aircraft at 24 mph.

Students from more than a dozen colleges and universities are involved in the project as volunteers.